Where Are the Dinosaurs in Videogames?
I've got a question that has been bugging me for a long time now - Where the heck are the games featuring dinosaurs? Dinosaurs are pretty much the biggest and best things to ever walk this earth, but they have been woefully under appreciated in videogames. And even when they actually manage to make an appearance, they don't usually even get to be the star.Turok and King Kong have some of the best dinosaur action around, but aren't nearly as good as they could have been because the games feature other enemies more often than the dinos. Seriously, King Kong had some of the most intense sequences that I can remember thanks to the mighty V-Rex, but you spend most of your time fighting centipedes and scorpions. Turok also featured pretty much perfect dinosaurs, but they took a backseat to the goofball story and human soldiers.
My personal favorite dinosaur game is Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis on the Xbox (and is backward compatible on the 360). It is a theme park creator game, but the graphics and sound are really quite good and you can zoom in and out as close as you want to the dinosaurs. The dinosaurs themselves are very well done and have nice animation and a surprising variety to their actions. Just sitting back and watching them is amazingly fun. Definitely check it out.
But my request still goes out. Please, developers, someone make a good game with dinosaurs (and just dinosaurs) in it!
Images © Ubisoft, Konami
Comments
Amen. I wonder this myself, but it has to have something to do with a perceived limited market. Personally I enjoy Turok, but it has obvious flaws. In my opinion a truly great Dinosaur game would be Dinosaurs placed in an open living world.
Think the incredibly diverse landscapes present in Far Cry 2 - developers could easily place dinosaurs with all types of mentality and behavioral traits. Herds, loners, packs, etc…
A game like this, even if they aren’t a part of the central story, would be awesome. Perhaps you would get awards for bringing a big one down, but generally it would just add to the tension and excitement of the game when you aren’t just looking for people in the jungle, but for a Raptor ambush. Or the slight vibrations you feel getting closer as a T-Rex approaches and you try your best to hide…
So much unharvested potential…
Yeah, there’s a definite need for a modern shooter with dinosaurs! Thats a great idea, a Far Cry 2 style environment with a huge animal menace.. There are people working on a Jurassic Park Half-Life (2?) conversion, although I presume it to be strictly non profit… I wonder if Michael Crichton or Universal Studios or whoever would piss their pants over a studio game with a similiar plot.. well, it’d be amazing anyway! That huge area, lots of different huge enlosure’s, many of them linked together.. It could be a journalist investigating rumours of a secret genetics project in South America… what would the purpose of breeding the dinosaurs be though? There was an amazing 2000 AD strip about a TV game show with dinosaur and human combatants.. a government sponsered program to create the ultimate modern spectacle… in the near future but with modern day weapons.. there’s an obvious idea for a sequel too!